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Edutainment > Pablo Picasso - 1881-1973

No other artist is more associated with the
term Modern Art than Pablo Picasso. He created thousands of
paintings, prints, sculptures and ceramics during
a time span of about 75 years. For many Picasso
is the greatest art genius of the twentieth century.
For others he is a gifted charlatan. Undisputed is the
fact that he influenced and dominated
the art of the twentieth century like no other modern artist.

First Publication: May 2001
Latest Update: April 2013

No Picasso Pictures on this Page?

For copyright reasons we cannot show you any pictures of Picasso art works on this
web site. That's a pity. But you find a rather popular, easy to read
biography on this page and on
a continuation page. And to make this page look less sad, we show a
painting by a young emerging Chinese artist. Her name is Poon Shu. And you can see more
works by Poon Shu on our website dedicated to
contemporary Chinese art.

Pablo Picasso - the Brilliant Student

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga,
Spain, as the son
of an art and drawing teacher.
He was a brilliant student. He passed the entrance examination
for the Barcelona School of Fine Arts at the age of 14
in just one day and was allowed to skip the first two
classes. According to one of many legends
about the artist's life, his father, recognizing the extraordinary
talent of his son, gave him his brushes and palette and
vowed to paint never again in his life.

Blue and Rose Period

During his lifetime, the artist went through different periods
of characteristic painting styles. The Blue Period
of Picasso lasted from about 1900 to 1904.
It is characterized by the use of
different shades of
blue underlining the melancholic style of his
subjects - people from the grim side of life with thin,
half-starved bodies. His painting style during these years
is masterly and convinces even those who reject his later
modern style.

During Picasso's Rose Period from about 1905 to 1906,
his style moved away from the
Blue Period to a friendly pink tone with subjects taken
from the world of the circus.

Cubism

After several travels to Paris, the artist moved permanently
to the "capital of arts" in 1904.
There he met all the other famous artists like
Henri Matisse,
Joan Miro
and George Braques. He became a great
admirer of Henri Matisse and developed a life-long friendship
with the master of French Fauvism.

Inspired by the works of Paul Cezanne, he developed
together with George Braque and Juan Gris
developed the Cubist style. In Cubism, subjects are
reduced to basic geometrical shapes. In a later version of
Cubism, called synthetic cubism, several views
of an object or a person are shown simultaneously from a
different perspective in one picture.

Picasso and Guernica

In 1937 the artist created his landmark painting
Guernica, a protest against
the barbaric air raid against a Basque village during
the Spanish Civil War. Picasso's Guernica is a huge
mural on canvas in black, white and grey which was created for the
Spanish Pavilion of the Paris World's Fair in 1937.
In Guernica, Picasso used symbolic forms - that are
repeatedly found in his works following Guernica -
like a dying horse or a weeping woman.

Guernica was exhibited at the museum of Modern Art
in New York until 1981. It was transferred to the Prado
Museum in Madrid/Spain in 1981 and was later
moved to the Queen Sofia
Center of Art, Madrid in 1992. Picasso had disallowed the
return of Guernica to Spain until the end of the
rule of Fascism by General Franco.

Pablo Picasso - External References

Literature source used for this Pablo Picasso biography

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